Most flanges made to date are circular in shape. Some disadvantages of such circular flanges include high manufacturing costs and the low stability of such reels during transport.
Support blocks must be mounted on at least one of the flanges of a reel with circular flanges holding elongated material to facilitate stacking and to enable the reel to be lifted from the ground with a lifting device. However, the presence of such support blocks also has disadvantages, such as increased volume during transport and the fact that their presence must be taken into account when winding or unwinding the reel.